


Duties of a Lighthouse Keeper

by orphan_account



Category: Marble Hornets
Genre: Alex Kralie's Marble Hornets, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Time Travel, Arson, Canon-Typical Violence, Canonical Character Death, During Canon, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Events Repeating, Fire, Friends to Lovers, Gun Violence, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Jam, M/M, Memory Alteration, Memory Loss, Mental Breakdown, Mental Health Issues, Mental Institutions (mentioned), Multiverse, Post-Canon, Post-Marble Hornets, Suicide Attempt, Time Travel, cyclical, repeating
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-12
Updated: 2020-05-07
Packaged: 2021-03-02 02:40:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 7
Words: 17,657
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23617648
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Called on my radio, frequency dipped belowAudible levels, so I sat in my wet clothesKeeping the wicks trimmed and lit after the storm had hitI turned on my light but it couldn't find youJay should be dead, but he isn't. After being taken to a strange dark dimension he finds himself awake in his dorm room, unable to recall anything that happened before and considering it a dream. When the mysterious and familiar Tim Wright falls into his life and his best friend Alex Kralie begins acting stranger every day, Jay will have to fight through the static in his mind to try and uncover what's really going on before it's too late to change the future.
Relationships: Amy & Alex Kralie, Amy & Jessica (Marble Hornets), Amy/Alex Kralie, Jay & Alex Kralie, Jay & Timothy "Tim" W., Jay Merrick/Timothy "Tim" Wright, Jay/Timothy "Tim" W., Jessica Locke & Jay Merrick
Comments: 6
Kudos: 46





	1. There Was a Storm Last Night

Jay had just been shot by Alex. He clutched his side where the bullet had entered, trying his best to staunch the blood whilst both running from Alex and carrying the camera. He dipped into a room, quickly barring the door before he slid down against the wall, his legs practically giving out underneath him. He stared at the ceiling for a moment, his camera in his lap as he breathed heavily. He was going to die here, alone in the dingy basement of an abandoned school building. He wanted to cry, but he didn’t have the time. When he looked down in the corner of the room stood the Operator. He had been in so much pain he hadn’t noticed the static creeping into his mind, and before he could truly register it he had a brief feeling of vertigo and landed on a patch of concrete. The sudden change in how his body was positioned caused him to fall to his hands and knees as his legs hadn’t yet registered the need to support him. He scrambled back with a wince, searching for the camera. He couldn’t find it and began to panic. It was dark and he had no idea where he had been brought to, and it was even more likely now that he would die and no one would find him. He got to a shaky stand, deciding that even if these would be his last moments he would try to find help. He wanted to say sorry to Tim in person.

“Hello?” he called out into the darkness as he shuffled forward slowly. The more he moved the less excruciating the pain in his side became until it was nothing more than a dull throb. “Is anyone here? I need help!”

It was then that he saw something on the edge of his vision. He approached it to see that it was a person lying on the ground, their head turned away from him. He moved closer and realized who it was. The man in the white shirt. The one Alex had killed with a rock. Jay stumbled backwards, attempting to avoid seeing the gore that had likely been created from the wound. He turned around and began running in the other direction until he stumbled upon a random grouping of trees around a dilapidated wooden shack. He recognized it as the one he had woken up in with Tim but didn’t understand how it could have gotten here. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw something move. He whipped around to see what it was but they disappeared around the corner before he could see them.

“Hey! Come back!” He said, attempting to give chase. The stranger was ahead of him by a few metres, far enough that he could make out their shape but not close enough that he could tell their identity. “Hey! I need help! Please!”

They paused for long enough that Jay could finally make out who they were. He gasped when he saw who the girl facing him was. Alex’s girlfriend, Amy. Her hair and the left side of her clothes were covered in blood, and her eyes were filled with fear.

“Stay away from me!” She screamed before sprinting off. Jay couldn’t catch up with her and before he knew it she had disappeared. He stood in silence for a moment, confused about if it was real or if he was having a fever dream due to his incoming death. Amy was dead, he was sure of it. Whether Alex or the Operator got her she shouldn’t be alive, let alone sprinting away from him. He exhaled, turning around and stopping when he saw the hospital a few metres behind him where it hadn’t been before. He entered it, searching around. Every few feet he heard footsteps behind him, but every time he looked there was no one around. Just as he decided to leave he was tackled from behind, falling to the ground. He looked up to see his attacker, realizing quickly that the wild-eyed, long-haired man was in fact, Seth.

“I told you if I ever saw you’re stupid face here again I’d kill you!” He shouted, swinging a rock above his head, revealing his abdomen. Directly in the middle was a wide hole that went all the way through, allowing Jay to see the corridor he had come from through it. He wanted to throw up. Seth motioned to bring down the rock but paused inches from Jay’s head. “You’re not Alex.”

He stood up quietly, reaching out a bloodied hand to help Jay stand. He recoiled at first but accepted it, moving to a stand. He needed to get out of whatever this place as long as it wasn’t hell or purgatory considering he had already met one likely dead person and now this person who, in their condition, should be dead and not tackling him.

“You’re- You’re Seth. I- I thought you were dead.” Jay stuttered out, doing his best to avoid looking at the distractingly large wound.

“How do you know who I am?” Seth said with a sharp inhale. It was clear he didn’t recognize Jay and was now reconsidering not bashing his face in with a rock. “Are you working with Alex?”

“No I- I helped with Marble Hornets. You probably don’t remember but I’m Jay. And I’m not with Alex. He kind of killed me or tried to kill me?” Jay stammered. He did not want to either die if he wasn’t dead yet or double die if he was.

“No I don’t remember I-” A static buzz filled the air and Seth paused, his eyes growing even wilder. Without a word he sprinted off, leaving Jay behind to face whatever was coming. He didn’t see anything but before he knew it he had the feeling of vertigo again and felt himself fall back onto the ground. He blinked his eyes, lights blinding them as he slowly realized he was in a house. More specifically, Tim’s house. The pain returned intensely and Jay scrambled back against the corner between the kitchen counter and the wall. Paper shuffled and tore underneath him, growing wet as blood dripped down onto it. He now felt incredibly drained as though being in the other place had taken all his energy despite it feeling almost effortless to be alive there even with the injury. He clutched his side again, hissing at the pain.

“Tim! Tim!” He screamed as loudly as he could, hoping the other man had returned home and would be able to take him to the hospital before he died. Maybe this was some sick joke and he was meant to bleed out here. Maybe to make Tim mad. Maybe to force Tim into his masked state. Jay soon realized Tim wasn’t coming so he tried the next best thing. “Hey! Hooded guy! Help!”

He assumed that hadn’t worked either. As he stared at the floor strewn with papers he thought of all of his regrets. He wished he hadn’t freaked out on Tim. He wished he had found Jessica, even if it was in the other place. He wished he had never gotten involved in the first place, going so far as to wonder if he could have avoided Alex altogether, to begin with. He watched silently, ignoring the movement out of the corner of his eye. What was the point? He could feel the life draining out of him and he closed his eyes, trying to conserve energy to last a little longer. He heard heavy footsteps and his heart sunk as Tim’s voice cried out. It was too late to say anything. He used all his energy, trying to force his eyes open to see him one last time. As his sense faded from him one by one, his pulse slowing till it beat no longer, his organs shutting down systematically, he opened his eyes.

He stared at the ceiling of his dorm, wondering why it had felt so hard to open his eyes that morning.

“Maybe my sleep’s been worse than I thought.” He mumbled as he slowly got out of bed and touched his feet to the carpeted floor. He paused for a moment, staring in the mirror. Something felt wrong like he had just woken from an important dream he couldn’t remember like he should be keeping something in mind. His hand moved over the side of his stomach, and he shook his head. Nothing was wrong with him, why had he done that? As he moved around the dorm room he kept trying to recall the dream. Even when he made the conscious effort to push it to the back of his mind it would still worm it’s way to the forefront. After getting dressed he made his way to the wall-mounted cork board to check his schedule. For some reason, he couldn’t remember what classes he had, which was odd considering he had been in college for- He paused. He couldn’t recall how long he had been in college for like the memory had vanished. He grew worried. 

“Let’s see what I have today instead of worrying about that because I can’t afford a therapist right now…” he said to himself out of habit as he pulled his finger down the calendar trying to find the day’s date. He assumed it was the most recent uncrossed one as he couldn’t recall that either. When he saw what the uncrossed box read he froze, his heartbeat rising and his throat feeling choked. Again his hand ghosted against his abdomen.

“What is wrong with you, snap out of it.” He said to himself as he shook his head. Why had he gotten so afraid so suddenly? All it said was meeting up with Alex to do interviews for his student film Marble Hornets, about people trying to uncover what happened to their missing friend- he paused again. That wasn’t remotely the plot. It was a coming of age thing that Jay found quite trite and poorly written, but he wasn’t going to tell Alex because- because he was scared? Because he would get angry and hurt him? He shook it off again. Whatever the dream had been he had to remember. Alex was his friend, he had no idea why he was thinking about him with so much dread. He quickly phoned Alex.

“Hey, Alex?” He said into the phone quietly, trying to stop his heart from bursting out of his chest, which he still didn’t understand. “Could you postpone the interviews for today? I’m just feeling weird and sick all of a sudden.”

“I was just about to call you, actually.” He said, exhaling into the phone. He had seemed tense like a weight had been lifted. “I already called Brian to postpone his, but I don’t have Tim’s number. They’ll be Friday but could you please try and get a hold of Tim to tell him?”

“Yeah, I think I can do that,” Jay replied. “I’ll see you Friday,”

They both hung up and Jay began scrolling through his phone, looking for Tim’s phone number. He didn’t know why, but he hoped he would get to talk to him again, which was strange considering he had never talked to him before. Regardless he found his contact and called. Almost instantaneously the phone was picked up. It sounded almost as though Tim had just been crying. 

“Uh, hey, I don’t think we’ve ever talked before, I’m uh, Jay Merrick, I’m working with Alex on his student film and he wanted me to call you to let you know that your interviews have been moved to Friday. Also are you ok?”

“Yeah, I’m fine I just. Don’t worry about it, I’ll mark down the interview. I just-” he paused, breathing in and out. “Could I come over to your dorm to talk about something? It’s important.”

“Uh, sure, I’ll give you the address-” Jay was interrupted.

“Don’t worry I already know the way. Alex said he’s in that dorm building and mentioned your dorm number. I’ll be over in five minutes.” Before Jay could say anything else he had hung up, at first causing Jay to be mildly creeped out but then for some strange reason relieved. He wanted to see Tim, wanted to talk to him and tell him something, but he didn’t know what. He had never even met the guy, only heard about him through Alex. He was beginning to get agitated about not only the gaps in his memory but the parts of his memory that seemed to be replaced by something blatantly wrong. 

“Hey Jay, it’s me, Tim.” He hadn't realized it had already been five minutes. He moved to the door, opening it to see for the first time who Tim was. The man on the other side of the door was incredibly familiar to him. 

“Have we... met before? You look familiar.” At Jay’s words, Tim’s expression changed twice, first from indifference to sadness and quickly to a feigned confusion. He took note of it, filing it in his mind for later for reasons he couldn’t explain. He had never been one to notice little details like that before, let alone consider committing them to memory. “Sorry, that was a weird thing to say. Uh, come in.”

He closed the door behind Tim who wore an old tan jacket over a red plaid shirt. He almost asked about where his camera was but stopped when he realized that was a stupid question that made no sense.

“So, what did you want to talk about?” Jay asked, rubbing his hands against his pants nervously. He had never been the best at interacting with strangers. 

“I just- I had something to tell you.” He stopped speaking.

“What was it?” Jay asked after a few seconds of awkward silence.

“I can’t remember,” Tim said with another pause. This time rather than Jay interrupting the silence, the dorm buildings fire alarm blared to life like a banshee. Jay hated the sound of fire alarms, they stressed him out. “We have to find Alex.”

“What, Why?” Jay asked as Tim jumped off his couch and flung open the door, Jay close behind. “Alex can get out on his own, he knows the fire route. We should worry about ourselves.”

“No, trust me, we need to find Alex,” Tim said. They made their way to the stairs and descended several flights to the ground floor. The smoke was thick, rising to the ceiling. Tim weaved through the crowd of students heading towards the exit, several of which glanced at him with unease. Jay followed close behind and was stopped by Seth from his film class.

“Jay, what are you doing? The exit’s this way.” He said, fighting to stay his ground against the flood of people.

“I’m looking for Alex,” Jay replied quickly, beginning to move forward so he wouldn’t lose sight of Tim. Seth lost his footing and began to be pushed forward again. He said something, but Jay couldn’t hear him. He eventually caught back up to Tim and the crowd dissipated. He could hear the fire crackling and the smoke was even thicker here. He began to cough.

“This is his dorm, right?” Tim yelled, pulling the neck of his shirt over his mouth and nose. Jay did the same.

“Yeah, why?” Jay asked. The heat was starting to get to him. He watched Tim walk backwards against the wall before running at full speed and slamming into the door. It popped open with a large cracking sound and Jay’s face turned white when he saw the state of the dorm room. The entire thing was covered in fire. “Oh my god.”

Without thinking he ran into the room, searching for Alex and doing his best to avoid the flame directly. His skin burned from the ambient heat. He didn’t see Alex in the main area and checked the bathroom. The smoke was making his head feel light, but as he opened the door he found Alex passed out in the bathtub. When he approached he found that something was very wrong. He was covered in blood. Jay shook his head. He had never really been squeamish when it came to blood and so he hoisted him over his shoulder. Alex was heavier than he expected.

“Jay, you have to get out of there!” He heard Tim yell shortly before a portion of the ceiling collapsed down in front of the bathroom door, blocking the path with flame. “Oh shit! Jay, try the window! I’ll meet you outside!”

He heard Tim cough, the sound growing distant as he ran to the exit. Jay set Alex on the toilet and attempted to pry open the window with no luck. It had been nailed shut long ago. He looked around, finding nothing he could pick up. He looked at the window again. He took a deep breath, reeled his arm back, and smashed his fist against the window causing it to shatter. The glass cascaded down his hand, cutting it and making it sting. He heard someone outside shouting and the sound of someone running towards the window. He looked outside quickly to see a girl he didn’t recognize.

“Hey! Help!” he shouted as she ran closer. She came to the base of the window. “I need you to grab my friend. He’s unconscious and bleeding but I don’t think I can get him away on my own.”

“Got it.” She said. Jay picked up Alex and carefully slid him through the window. The girl grabbed him, muttering when she saw the state he was in. “Holy Shit.”

“Jay didn’t wait too long for her to move away from the window, other students running up to help carry Alex away. He climbed onto the windowsill and could feel the fire licking against his back. He practically launched himself out onto the ground, cutting his knees and more of his hands in the process. When he landed he realized his shirt was on fire and began trying to put it out. Smoke poured out of the window and he could feel himself losing consciousness as someone ran up to him. Before he fell asleep he managed to put out the fire and felt whoever it was beginning to drag him somewhere.


	2. Blew Away Wrong and Right

Jay opened his eyes to be faced with darkness again. He was back in the dark place, the one from his dream, or at least the part he could vaguely remember. This time it took on the appearance of a forest. He wandered for a bit until he came upon a familiar figure. Alex sat on the ground, knees curled to his chest, head in his crossed arms. He sounded like he was sobbing, and he didn’t look up until Jay was about two feet away.

“What do you want?” He spat angrily as tears streamed down his face. “Here to taunt me? Maybe kill me again? Show me what you did to the others?”

Jay was taken aback.

“Alex, what are you talking about? You’re my best friend, why would I ever do anything to you?” He said. Alex stood up quickly, and Jay gasped. His neck and chest were covered in red blood, with deep stab wounds both on the visible parts of the skin and revealed through torn openings in his shirt. “What happened to you?”

Alex laughed.

“Are we really playing this game again? You happened, Jay. You and that freaky monster. I know you remember exactly what you did. You tried this last time I saw you, and then you did the exact same to me that you did before you sick freak!” Alex yelled at him as he backed away slowly. “Fuck off. I never want to see you again.”

“Alex I actually don’t know what you’re talking about. We were just in your dorm- There was a fire I-” Alex interrupted him.

“Just in my dorm? Jay, I haven’t seen my dorm since 2008. I haven’t seen a building that wasn’t abandoned or a hotel since 2010. Do you know who’s fault that is? Yours. I wish you never gave me those stupid tapes. I wish you burned them like you had promised you were going to.” He turned away from him, staring into the dark. “Take a little advice from me, Jay. Burn in hell. Or maybe go find Tim, I don’t care! He’s probably the last person on earth who still likes you considering he doesn’t know you’re the one who killed him yet.”

“This is just a dream,” Jay said quietly to himself, willing to wake up. “It’s just a fucked up dream.”

“You can wish this was a dream all you want Jay, but that won’t change the fact that you’re the monster who burned down my apartment and killed Amy. Or that you’re the one who trapped Seth in the abandoned hospital. Or that you’re the one who hunted me down and stabbed me, or that your the one who didn’t even let Tim see your face before you shot him.” Alex breathed in deeply, trying to compose himself. “You ruined everyone’s life, you said everyone else was infected, that they were the problem. You never stopped to ask yourself, ‘how did they get infected?’ And even if you had I doubt you pointed the finger in the right direction. You were always the problem, Jay, Patient Zero. At least you had the decency to finish your plan and kill yourself. See you never.”

And with that he walked off into the darkness, leaving Jay dumbfounded. He had never hurt anyone, and it wasn’t possible for Alex to not have seen his dorm since 2008 considering it was still 2006. Everyone Alex had just mentioned had been alive mere moments ago. It was impossible that this was anything other than a dream, but what did it mean? He heard static growing, and he turned around looking for the source. Just before everything went black again he saw a silhouette in the darkness of someone tall, taller than any person he had ever seen. It scared him.

When he opened his eyes, hopefully truly awake this time, he was facing a white ceiling. He looked around to find himself in a hospital room. He felt bandages wrapped around his chest and abdomen, reminding him why he was here. He hoped everyone else was okay, especially after the dream he had. He was beginning to consider not falling asleep again. As he thought of what dream-Alex had told him, what he had said he had done, Tim walked into the room.

“Hey man, you feeling alright?” he asked, sitting down in a chair near the bed. For the most part, he seemed fine but his hand has a large bandage down the arm. He saw him staring at it. “Don’t worry about it. I got a little burnt putting you out after you passed out. It’s not that big of a deal.”

“Oh, uh, thanks.” He replied. To him, it was a big deal, even if Tim thought otherwise. “And yeah I think I’m pretty good. I mean, I’m not dead yet.”

Both of them sat silently, and Jay wondered why that sounded familiar, why he felt driven to say that. He decided to say something else.

“Is Alex alright?”

“Yeah, he’s in the next room over but he hasn’t woken up yet. The doctors are saying he should be fine and his parents are in there bawling their eyes out so I decided to try my luck with you.” At the mention of Alex’s parents, Jay thought about his own. Even if he wanted them here, which he didn’t, they wouldn’t show up. They were the tough love type. In the hospital because you almost died in a fire trying to save your best friend? That’s neat, who gives a shit? “I honestly didn’t expect you to go in there like that, you don’t strike me as the type to be-”

“What? Brave?” Jay retorted, his mind so stuck on his parents he forgot who he was talking to.

“What? I was going to say reckless.”

“Sorry, I don’t know why I said that,” Jay said quietly. “Did they find out what happened? What started the fire?”

“Yeah, they said it was an electrical error in the next unit over. They’ve been letting people in to grab their stuff if they lived in other parts. Alex’s room wasn’t accessible but I went to yours and grabbed all your stuff so no one would try to steal it.” Tim said as he leaned back in the chair, staring out the window.

“Thanks, that’s really cool of you to do.” Jay thought back to his dream again, deciding to mention it to Tim. “Hey Tim, have you ever had a weird dream?”

“You’re going to have to be more specific.”

“Ok, have you ever dreamt that you were in a weird dark place that changed around the whole time, and people you know but also people you don’t are there? Or at least people you don’t think you know?” 

“No…” Tim trailed off, looking at him. “I don’t think so.”

“Ah, don’t worry about it then. I don’t know why I even brought it up, I mean, I barely know you.” He laughed. Tim’s expression changed like he was regretting something. Jay ignored it. “I’ll just shut up now.”

“No, tell me more, I’m interested now.”

“Oh, uh, okay. So I was in the weird dark place, and it was like a forest, and I found Alex there. He was acting really weird, just sobbing into his arms before he noticed me. Then he got really angry. He stood up and it was like he was some sort of zombie, just covered in stab marks. He kept telling me it was my fault, that I did it to him and that he never wanted to see me again. He mentioned years that haven’t happened yet and said I burned down his apartment and that I-” He paused. He could feel himself getting erratic and so he took a deep breath before continuing. “He said I killed other people, he mentioned Amy which is a name I don’t recognize, and then he mentioned Seth, and then… you.”

“Oh.”

Jay had just freaked him out. He knew it. He just freaked out the only person left who knew what was going on and wasn’t after him. He paused his train of thought. What was he thinking?

“Sorry, I should’ve just not mentioned it.”

“No, don’t worry about it. I lied anyway, I had a dream kind of like that I just didn’t want to freak you out.” Tim said, running a hand through his hair. He checked the time on his watch before speaking again. “I have to head out now, visiting hours are over but I’ll try and swing by again tomorrow. Maybe Alex will be awake.”

“What happened to Alex anyway? Why was he covered in blood?” Jay asked as Tim went to walk out the door. He froze.

“I’ll tell you tomorrow.” He said, and before Jay could prod further he was gone. He wondered why Tim didn’t just tell him now, and then he thought about Alex. They had been friends since the start of college, and told each other about practically everything. Alex had even told him about in high school when he had tried-. Jay took in a sharp breath. That must have been it. Jay thought about what he should have done, he should have gone to hang out with him rather than sitting in his dorm overthinking the details of a dream he couldn’t even remember. He should have been a better friend, and noticed the signs. He’d have to ask if he could visit Alex once he woke up, maybe talk to him about it. For now, he would just have to wait here staring at the ceiling until the next day came. He tried to fight the oncoming bout of sleep but failed.

He didn’t dream that night and woke up to a knocking on the wall. It was Tim. 

“Hey man, Alex is awake now. I asked a nurse and he said it’s cool if you visit him since you aren’t really hooked up to anything and you’re going to get discharged tomorrow anyway.” Jay got out of the hospital bed while Tim waited. He followed him down the hall to the next door and into the room. Alex was sitting in the bed, staring at his hands. His wrists were bandaged all the way up to his elbows. He looked up when they walked into the room, giving Jay a weak smile.

“Hey.” was all he said. Jay ran over to him, hugging him before doing anything else.

“Oh my god, Alex we almost died.” He said quietly before letting go. “How are you doing?”

“I should be asking you that, all things considered. I mean, I heard you were on fire.”

“It was only the back of my shirt. It was worth it to make sure you were alright, but I think we should really thank Tim for that because he had some sort of spider-sense moment and dragged me down to your dorm.” Jay laughed, sitting down on the edge of the bed.

“Why was Tim in our dorm building?” Alex asked confused.

“Jay invited me over.” He said from where he leaned against the wall.

“I thought you were sick,” Alex said, tilting his head.

“I was, but Tim said he had to talk about something so I let him come over. I mean, the fire alarm went off before anything could really be said but it’s whatever,” Jay replied quietly. For some reason, he thought Alex was about to go ballistic, but he didn’t.

“Well, I’m glad he was over then if he got you to go down,” Alex replied. “Hey Tim, I’m sorry but could you step out for a second? I want to talk to Jay alone.”

“No problem,” Tim said as he stepped into the hallway, closing the door behind him. As soon as he was gone Alex began to cry.

“I’m so sorry Jay. I- I almost got you killed.” He said softly.

“Alex, you don’t have to apologize to me, I just wish you had told me you weren’t okay so I could have helped you out before it got this far,” Jay said, hugging him again.

“That’s the thing,” He sniffled, “I was fine, I know I was fine, and that day I woke up and I felt like the scummiest person alive. I felt like a monster. And I am one, I know I am one, because I did something awful to you, and Tim, and Seth, and Brian, and Amy, and Jessica. And I knew I had an idea already so I tried to do it but I didn’t have a gun, and- and-”

He broke down sobbing. Jay hugged him more tightly, dreading the thought of Alex having had a gun with him.

“You’re really here right now, right Jay? You’re really alive?” He asked desperately.

“Yeah Alex, I’m here. I’m alive.” He responded quietly, letting his best friend cry into his shoulder. He rubbed his back gently. “You’re not a monster, Alex. You’ve never done anything to anyone. I know that your mind is telling you otherwise but trust me, Alex.”

“I don’t even know why I’m thinking like this, Why I think I’ve hurt anyone. I keep thinking, ‘Jay is dead. You killed him. You shot him even after he called out to you.’ And I don’t know why. I’ve never even owned a gun, Jay. I was convinced I had one.” Jay thought about what dream-Alex had claimed he had done.

“It’s going to be okay, Alex. We’re going to get out of here together and we’re going to finish your movie.”

“I forgot about the movie. We need to cancel it.” Alex said suddenly. Jay could feel him grow tense and afraid.  
“What? Why?” Jay asked. Alex had been so excited to start it, why would he cancel it now?

“I- I don’t know. I’m not thinking straight.” Alex said. He pulled away from Jay, wiping his eyes. Tim knocked on the door. “You can come in now.”

“Hey Alex, is it okay if I talk to you alone?” Tim asked, glancing at Jay.

“Yeah, that’s fine,” Alex asked confused. Jay nodded and walked back to his hospital room, wondering what Tim had to say. He sat up in the bed for a few minutes before Tim walked in again.

“So, I wanted to let you know no one is allowed to stay at the dorm building right now because of fire damages, so if you need a place to stay my dorm is available. I mean, all your stuff is there anyway. My roommate Brian is there too but he’s a cool guy.” Tim said.

“That sounds fine.”

The next day Jay was discharged and given instructions on burn care for his back. They said goodbye to Alex and promised to come get him when he was discharged as well. They made their way to Tim’s dorm, which was the kind meant to house four or five people.

“So it’s only you and Brian who live here?” Jay asked confused.

“Yeah, the other roommates dropped out and no one else ever moved in. They were going to relocate people here after the fire regardless so I just asked for you and Alex since I at least kind of know you guys.” Jay nodded as they got out of his car and entered the apartment. “Welcome to my dorm.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> With this fic, I'm going for a groundhog day style sort of AU. The basic premise is that every time all of them die the timeline resets itself.


	3. Watching the Waves Crash Down

It was incredibly tidy in the small common area with a few instruments strewn about. He could see a ukulele on the table and a box of something that was likely a bass guitar. Jay walked over to it, thinking about how he used to know how to play.

“You have a lot of instruments here.” Jay chuckled as he saw a small keyboard tucked into the corner and some sort of dome covered in mechanical parts on the kitchen counter. “I mean, it makes sense. You’re a music major, right?”

“Yeah, I’m making music for Alex’s movie too. Do you play anything?” He asked as he moved around the room tucking different Knick knacks, bottles, and smaller instruments into cupboards. Jay took notice that there were many, many bottles of pills strewn about the room. Some half-full, some empty, some seemingly new. The number of empty ones seemed to outweigh the others.

“I used to play bass in high school but fell out of practice. I’m probably no good anymore.” He said as he rubbed the back of his neck nervously. His mind was crawling all over the place as he scanned the room until his eyes landed on a tipped over box against the far wall. Tapes spilled out of it onto the floor, and he grew uneasy, going so far as to take a small step back.

“Are you ok?” Tim asked looking in his direction. Jay felt like he couldn’t breathe like the tapes were uncoiling and choking him with their film strips. His mind raced and his heart palpitations grew more intense. Fight or flight was seeping in, but he had no idea why.

‘It’s just a box of tapes.’ Jay tried to tell himself as his eyes remained trained on them, watching them move closer like coiling snakes. ‘This is all in your head.’

His attempts at self-reassurance didn’t work, and finally, he fell back on instinct. 

“Jay! Wait!” He heard Tim call out. He didn’t stop. Something else was in control now.

The next thing he knew it was pitch black outside and he was leaning against something stiff. His joints ached from the cold and he slowly got to a robotic stand. He was in a forest. It felt familiar, more familiar than he would like. As though it were a second skin he was slipping into. He turned in a slow circle, analyzing what little he could see here. Despite the intense darkness, Jay knew this wasn’t the place from his dream, not from any real knowledge but rather a gut feeling deep inside him. As he completed his circle he realized there were no visible paths or landmarks. He was completely lost. He opted to just start walking in one direction. The movement would at least stop the cold from locking up his knees and stopping him from getting out of here at all. He moved towards a random direction, keeping his eyes peeled and jumping at almost every other movement in the woods that wasn’t caused by him. Eventually, he came upon what looked like some sort of tunnel. He approached it, clambering over some boulders near the entrance. When he finished climbing and was able to get a good look he found that two people were silhouetted at the end of the tunnel. He moved closer.

“Hey! I need your help!” As Jay got closer he found that some sort of bright light illuminated them from behind. Maybe they were filming something. The closer he grew the more he could make out of them. They appeared to be about equal in height wearing baggy clothing, the one on the left a tattered purple sweater and the one on the right a tan jacket. Despite the clothing one of them still appeared significantly more stick-like in build than the other. They then turned to face him, and Jay stopped in his tracks. The one on the left wore what appeared to be some sort of paper plate cut and moulded into a mask that could be easily placed amongst kindergarten artworks were it not decorated in the creepy way it was. Over the eye-slits, two large X’s were drawn in thick black marker. The mask had no mouth, instead, a crude approximation of spider mandibles was drawn in its place. This one made Jay feel incredibly uncomfortable, was he being judged? Sized up? Ignored?

The one on the right had the same offputting demeanour but felt much more friendly- friendly wasn’t the right word. Jay felt as though it was someone who he could be friends with. Their mask was decorated as almost a caricature of a woman’s face with black lips, rings around the eye, and thin eyebrows being drawn on. Jay felt the silence as he studied the two had gone on for long enough.

“Can you guys help me, I’m los-“ he was interrupted as the masked one rushed forward and covered his mouth with a gloved hand. It didn’t seem violent, not like they were trying to hurt him, but rather that they were trying to stop him from making a mistake. The paper-faced one crept towards the blindingly bright opening of the tunnel, nodding at their seeming partner in whatever this standing around in creepy tunnels at night was called. The masked individual drew the hand away, putting a single finger against his lip. Jay nodded, getting the memo. The masked person then slung Jay over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes almost causing Jay to cry out. He didn’t out of fear. Not of these two, he felt they were trying to help him more than anything, but frightened of whatever he didn’t see that they were telling him to keep hidden from. It was then that Jay heard shouting.

“TIM! JAY!” Brian’s familiar voice called out. “TIM! JAY! TIM! JAY!”

He continued to shout intermittently, growing ever closer to him and the stranger. Jay decided to push his luck.

“BRIAN!” He screamed. The masked individual dropped him roughly to the ground before sprinting into the dark. Jay wondered if he had startled him, and then began wondering if he had some sort of concussion when his mind grew fuzzier. 

“JAY?” Brian asked as loudly as he could, sounding as though he could only be a few feet away. Jay broke into a fit of cough as the fuzz in his mind grew stronger. He glanced around, spotting the paper faced stranger staring just past him.

“BRIAN!” He screamed before turning back to them. The stranger was gone. Jay looked behind him to see what they had seen. In the distance, he saw someone standing, but wasn’t quite able to make them out. He felt threatened, a headache building in his mind as his coughing intensified. He was on his hands and knees now hacking a lung into the cold earth. He wondered if the figure was a friend of the two strangers. As Jay’s thoughts grew more incoherent and jumbled he saw Brian run towards him.

“Thank god you’re okay.” He said as he glanced around. All the figures were gone now and Jay’s mind grew clearer again. “Have you seen Tim? We got split up looking for you. He was wearing a tan jacket.”

Jay tilted his head, thinking of the strangers.

“Was he wearing a mask?” He asked, wondering if they could be the same. It was unlikely but better to ask.

“A… Mask?” Brian responded with a surprised expression. “No, why?”

“Don’t worry about it,” Jay responded, knowing he had just asked a weird and stupid question. “I mean, There were people here, probably people just filming a music video or something. They were both wearing masks and one of them was wearing a tan jacket, but it could have been white or brown. It’s kind of dark out here.”

“What do you mean? Jay, it’s noon.” Brian’s words caused Jay to look around his surroundings. He was right, the sun was high in the sky and the forest was illuminated. “You disappeared around 6:00 yesterday. We’ve been looking since then.”

He couldn’t have been gone for twelve hours. It had only been an hour or two at most since he woke up off the path, but he had no idea how long the journey was or whether he walked or drove. He hoped he drove or he knew he would feel the walk later and would regret it.

“Twelve hours…” Jay muttered to himself, rolling it around in his mind as they made their way to a path. He had only been in the tunnel with the people and the light- something clicked in the back of his mind as he came to the realization he had seen no lighting equipment at the end of the tunnel, leading to the conclusion it was illuminated by daylight which shouldn’t be possible considering he entered it in the night. This scenario felt familiar, as though something he had experienced before had a similar unexplainable shift of time. Pictures of a trashed house that he didn’t recognize surfaced to the front of his thoughts. As they stepped out of the woods into a parking lot Jay’s thoughts drifted back to Tim. “Hey, shouldn’t we keep looking for Tim?”

“Don’t worry about it, he’ll find his way out and both of us brought our cars,” Brian said, hand waving the situation away. Jay thought of the people with the masks. “Those masked people, what if they’re dangerous? Shouldn’t we try to at least, I don’t know, call him?” 

“Don’t worry. He’ll be fine.” Brian seemed more agitated at the mention of the masked figures and so Jay decided to shut up. He wondered back to the strange happenings of the last few days. The fire, the false memories, and now himself wandering into the woods with no memory of it and Tim disappearing with Brian seeming to think of it as a non-issue. Jay yawned, exhausted, wondering if he had even slept since leaving the hospital. As they got into Brian’s car Jay decided to push the issue one more time, never being one to back down when he needed answers. 

“Are you sure, Brian? I’m still a little worried about him I mean-”

“Listen, Jay, I understand your concern but you haven’t known Tim for as long as I have. Sometimes he just disappears and comes back on his own and it’s just part of who he is. There’s nothing we can do about it so just leave it alone.” Brian snapped. The car grew awkwardly silent as Brian put the car into gear. He took a deep breath before putting it back in park and turning to face Jay. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have snapped at you like that. I’m just stressed about everything that’s happening right now.”

Before Jay could respond Brian's phone rang. He picked it up quickly, answering it without even looking at the caller ID despite it being the basic ringtone.

“Hello?” He responded. Jay could quietly hear Tim on the other end of the line, but couldn’t make out what he was saying. “Do you want us to wait for you here?”

He listened again, nodding along.

“How long do you think you’ll be?” He questioned. Tim seemed to halfway through the question have something occur as Jay heard him loudly curse on the other end. “Are you sure you don’t want us to wait?”

As Tim continued to speak the line became overpowered with the sound of static. A large outburst of it startled Brian, causing him to drop the phone. By the time he picked it up, Tim had hung up on his end.

“Great.” Brian spat, putting the car into reverse. “He’s fine, by the way, he’ll be back to the dorm in a few hours. In the meantime, I can get you set up in one of the empty rooms.”

“Oh, uh, that sounds good. And sorry for pushing the questions earlier I’ve just been… confused about some things these last few days.” Jay responded before looking out the window. Brian was in some of his classes and was a nice guy. Jay had met him before this and they hung out sometimes when their social circles overlapped but Jay didn’t have a very large social circle due to not being very good at social related things, and thus their circles overlapped much less than the average person. 

“Yeah, I get it. I mean, if my dorm burned down I’d be pretty out of it too.” He seemed to be lost in thought for a moment before perking up “Oh! I forgot to mention, Alex will be out of the hospital sometime tomorrow.”

“THat’s great!” Jay smiled. Alex would be moving into the dorm alongside Jay, meaning it would be easier for him to slit your throat while you sleep. to make the movie. Jay paused, thinking about how he had just thought, almost like a second voice had broken through into his consciousness to say something worryingly paranoid and violent alongside his train of thought. He pushed it off, deciding he didn’t want to think about it. Maybe ignoring the false thoughts would get rid of them, like some sort of weird psychological thing. “Do you know if he’s been doing better?”

“I think so. He sounded a lot less shaken up then Tim described, so unless he’s suddenly being overdramatic I think he’s doing better than he had been.” Jay smiled a little at that. He would make sure that he was there for Alex regardless. The last thing he wanted is for Alex to think he was alone, especially after what had happened.

After about forty-five minutes they arrived back at the dorm building. 

“Hey Brian, do you know if I walked all that way or if I drove?” Jay asked, soreness already creeping up his legs. He’d need some Tylenol once they got inside regardless of the answer.

“Considering your cars here and not at Rosswood I’d assume that’s what happened,” Brian replied whilst getting out of the car and closing his door.

“Of course it is,” Jay said to himself as he exited the car. He stretched, popping his back before following Brian up the steps. “How did my car get here anyway? I thought I left it at the other dorm and my car keys were with me the whole time.”

Brian seemed to get a little nervous.

“Tim may have brought it over for you when they were clearing out the parking lot. I may have helped.”

“Did you guys break into my car?” Jay asked suddenly before he thought about it again. “Did you guys hot-wire my car!?!”

“Only a little, and hey, would you rather it be brought here by people you know or dragged off to some scrapyard or impound lot by admin?” Brian replied with a smile, already knowing the answer. They walked through the front door into the common area. Immediately Jay noticed the box of tapes was gone. “So, there are two empty rooms. One on the far side and then one in the middle of the other rooms. I’m in the far one on the opposite side, Tim’s in the middle on the opposite side, do you care which one you get?”

“Not really,” Jay replied as he studied the room again, trying to discern if anything else about it had changed. 

“Well, all your stuff is in the middle one anyways so good choice, middle one it is.” Brian walked over, opening the door with a flourish. Jay’s things from his old dorm were all stacked neatly on the bed with some seemingly loaded into large containers for transportation. “Set up however you like, I’m going to start some late lunch cooking and keep an eye out for Tim. Shout if you need anything!”

He closed the door behind him when he left, leaving Jay to his own devices. He began rummaging through the items in the larger of the three containers that were on the bed, shoving the clothes off that were piled on top of them. He pulled out several items that he recognized, his laptop, his Handycam, and several textbooks, but found several others he didn’t. First was a chest-mounted camera he didn’t recognize, next was a small knife he knew he didn’t yet own as he was planning to buy one after his last one broke, and finally what appeared to be a tattered brown sweater. As he haphazardly it unfolded, allowing for something to fall out clattering to the ground. Jay picked it up cautiously, from the back seeing that it was some sort of mask. He flipped it over, staring at it. It reminded him of the one in the tunnel with an actual mask. It had the same eyebrows but inverted, the same rings around the eyes looking almost like eyeliner, but the biggest difference was the mouth. It was drawn on wide, reminding him of the Jokers or Jack Torrance. The combination of the slasher smile with the downturned eyebrows suggested more of a painful grimace or forced smile than a happy one. Jay set it down. He decided to ask Tim about it later.

“I’m back!” He heard him yell from the front hall, almost as though on cue with his thoughts. Jay opened the door and stepped out.

“Glad you're okay, Tim. I was getting worried about you.” Jay said to him as he entered the common area.

“Worried about me? Jay, I was terrified for you. I know that park pretty well, I grew up in the area. I imagine it’s not exactly your stomping ground. Are you okay now? You were acting really freaked out when you ran off.” He said rapidly.

“Yeah, I’m fine now. I don’t even really remember anything other than waking up in the woods and being in some weird tunnel.” Jay looked more closely at Tim, noticing a large bruise around his right eye. “What happened to your face?”

“You did, Jay. I tried to uh, tackle you when you ran and you gave me a left-hook. Before I knew it you had vanished.” Tim replied as he hung a tan jacket on the coat rack close to the door. “Don’t apologize for it though, it wasn’t your fault something freaked you out really bad. I could tell.”

“Oh, sorry,” Jay said regardless. “I don’t even remember doing that. Like I said I was here and there was a box of tapes on the ground and next thing I know, poof, I’m in the woods near some freaky tunnel.”

“Tell him about the masked people!” Brian hollered from the kitchen.

“What is he talking about, Jay? And did you say a tunnel?” Tim asked, a look of concern sweeping over his face.

“Yeah, I walked through this tunnel and there were two people at the end just hanging around. One of them had a mask that looked like it was made out of a paper plate or something and the other had one that looked store-bought, both with stuff drawn or painted on them. Oh!” Jay quickly went into his room, returning to the common area with the mask he had found in the container. “I also found this in my stuff, but I don’t recognize it. Where in my old dorm was it when you found it?”

“What the fuck.” Was all Tim replied.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> check me out on Instagram @neoneclectica ! Also, any criticism would be greatly appreciated, along with any other comments!


	4. Until My Velvet Had Drowned

“What?” Jay asked, confused by his response.

“What is it?” Brian asked, peeking his head out of the kitchen. When he saw what Jay was holding his eyes widened. “Where did you get that?”

Jay stood for a moment, stuttering out of not knowing what to say to the two responses. After all, it was only a mask, likely something he had used in a project in class and forgotten about all this time. It wouldn’t be the first time he ever forgot something, especially now it seemed. 

“Is there a problem?” he eventually managed to say with the two men staring him down as though he had just presented them with the most life-changing item on earth. Tim turned to Brian, whispering something. Brian seemed to stop and think for a minute before whispering back. Jay wanted to curl up and die. Had he messed something up? Did they hate him now? If Brian hated him he really would be the worst at friendship and social interaction, considering Brian tended to like everyone.

“No, well, yes, but no. There is a problem, potentially a big one, potentially a small one, but it’s not you. You're not the problem but some things happened that Brian and I need to tell you to do with that mask, and why the fact that you have it is a problem.” Tim stated awkwardly, stumbling over his words. He moved forward, hand poised to take the mask from Jay.

No, bad need it. Safety. His mind screamed in a flat, emotionless tone. He jerked his arm back momentarily before he realized how ridiculous that was, handing it over to Tim who gave him a look that said ’We both know I saw that.’ 

Traitor. Traitor to your own flesh, your own self. His mind yelled at him. Jay ignored it and once it realized it wasn’t being heard, whatever it was, it stopped. He sat down on the couch as Brian went back to the kitchen to turn off the stove, indicating that this was going to be awhile. Tim sat down, inspecting the mask further. Brian sat down on the other side, inspecting it as well when Tim handed it over. Jay’s palms grew sweaty when they passed it between them like he was nervously awaiting a reprimanding after being caught doing something he shouldn’t have been.

Take back! Take back! Take and run and hide! The voice screamed, desperation filling its invisible demeanour. Jay was beginning to get worried about that. There could be a serious issue here with the memory loss, false memories, what seemed to be a blackout, and now a voice in his head yammering at him to run out of here and hide in the woods.

“So, where did you find it?” Tim asked him, leaning forward so his elbows rested on his legs and his fists curled together as a support for his chin. 

“Well, uh, It was just with the stuff you said you grabbed from my dorm. It was in one of the bins-” He was interrupted by Tim.

“Wait, bins? I only grabbed a duffel bag and put some clothes and your computer and stuff in it. How many bins are there?” He questioned, clearly alarmed now.

“Four but I’ve only opened one of them. There was also a sweater and some sort of chest-mounted camera that I don’t recognize.” 

“Have you checked any of the other bins?” Tim asked, already standing. 

“No I haven’t” He replied, and watched as Tim went into the room and came back with a bin. It rattled like something loose was moving around inside of it. 

“Brian, why didn’t you mention any bins?” Tim asked.

“Because I didn’t know they existed until you did.” He replied curtly. Tim set down the bin on the table, not noticing when Jay slipped the mask off the table and under his sweater. He wasn’t sure why he had done it but just felt as though he needed it back in his possession. Jay stood as the lid was removed. At the very top of the bin was a messy, handwritten note on top of several sheets of paper covered in strange drawings he didn’t recognize. He grabbed the note first, reading through it as the others looked through the drawings.

“This is bad,” Brian said to Tim. “No one should be active this early aside from you.”

“I know,” Tim responded quietly. 

“This letter is mostly illegible.” Jay chimed in. “It says something about a liar but that’s about all I can make out of it.”

He handed it off to Tim who found it to be the same. They went back to the bin, removing the last few pages and revealing a large, sealed cardboard box. Tim carefully slid it out, causing it to rattle. Jay told them to wait a moment as he went back into the room. He shoved the mask and the tattered sweater into the drawer of the nearby desk and quickly grabbed the knife he had found and set on top of it. He brought it back out and slit the tape holding the box shut. When he set it down he watched Tim slide it off the table into his hand, trying to be discreet. Jay didn’t say anything about it. It wasn’t his knife anyway. He pulled back the flaps of the cardboard box, his heart sinking when he saw what was inside. At least 170 tapes neatly crammed into the box with just enough movement room for them to rattle against each other. He turned to the others who were both staring, dumbfounded.  
“Is this some sort of joke?” He asked. He had never seen so many tapes in one place in his life, and after his random freakout that was fairly easy to draw a connection between the box of tapes on the floor, this had to be more than some sick coincidence. “You guys are messing with me aren’t you?”

“No Jay you should know-” Tim was quickly interrupted by Jay, who was now furious.

“I should know what? We met less than a week ago and ever since you’ve been acting all cryptic and weird, whispering and moving around and acting like we know each other way better than we do, and it’s freaking me out because there are so many things I can’t remember right now and I'm terrified that I somehow forgot you in a weird semi-amnesia and that you are someone I should know!” He paused for a moment, breathing in and out. “You act like you know what’s going to happen before everyone else, like with the fire, you couldn’t have known Alex was still down there unless you knew something beforehand, and Alex acted surprised about you hanging out with me so there’s no way you two chatted before for you to find out about his suicide attempt, something I know he would only ever talk about to me, and then the first time I’m alone with you I blackout and wake up in the middle of woods that you say you’ve known since you were a kid, and then you disappear for two hours and Brian’s over here acting like that’s a normal thing to do! This feels wrong like I'm missing something like I should know something that everyone else already knows but no one is explaining to me!”

No one said a word. They all stared at each other, the silence deafening. Jay felt defeated, like they were ignoring what he was trying to say, or worse that they thought he was crazy. He tried to push back the tears that welled up, but couldn’t and felt ashamed when they rolled down his face. He was acting like a child.

“What are you… Alex tried to kill himself?” Tim asked, a look of genuine surprise moving across his face. Jay wanted to curl up on himself and die. He didn’t know.

“Isn’t that what you were being cryptic about when you left the hospital last night? I asked why when I found Alex he was covered in blood, and you said you’d tell me the next day if you didn’t know then why would you say that?” Jay asked, growing more and more erratic as he felt himself crumbling.

“I said that because I assumed it was something else that he-” Tim stopped speaking, clearly having said more than he intended.

“What? What are you hiding from me? What big thing concerns my best friend that you somehow knew about but won’t tell me?” Jay seethed. Liar. Liar! His brain screamed at him, likely directing its vitriol towards Tim. Jay listened to this time.

“Jay listen to me-”

“No, you listen to me, Timothy Wright. I’m starting to think that something is going on here. That you’ve planned something awful. That all of this,” He said gesturing to the tapes, notes, and other papers on the table, “Is some messed up part of it. I’m going to go into that dorm room so I can think straight, and when I come back out I want a real explanation. Not some random excuses or lies.”

“Jay you don’t understand, we can’t just tell you-” Brian tried to interject.

“Why not?” He shouted back, halfway to the door.

“Because you wouldn’t believe us!” He replied, exasperated.

“Then you better find something believable.” He spat back, slamming the door behind him. As soon as they were out of sight he felt how intense his heart rate had become. He regretted not mentioning Tim taking the knife, because now he felt as though he were in danger, and would quite like to have something to make him feel safer.

Danger. I can help. I can make you safe. His mind said to him as he opened the drawer and pulled out the mask and sweater on autopilot. It sounded strained like it took effort for the voice to construct longer, more sensible sentences. Control. I need control to make you safe.

Jay didn’t know what to do, or even how to cede control if he wanted to. He put the sweater on over his green t-shirt, feeling cold in the room. 

Help. I can help. The voice said to him. He had a tugging feeling like it was pulling his consciousness to the back of his mind.

“Brian, did he take the mask?” He heard Tim say, worry in his voice. 

“If neither of us has it then probably,” Brian replied, sounding equally as worried.

“Shit.” He heard Tim exclaim, and then the sound of footsteps moving towards the room. The tugging grew more insistent. As the doorknob turned he released his consciousness, falling into darkness. At first, it was like his senses were only dampened. He felt the mask on his face and the hood pulled up and watched Tim enter with blurry vision. His body moved on its own, flinging open the window and bolting out of it. Tim grabbed his ankle, trying to pull him back in. He kicked. Hard. His foot connected with Tim’s face where it had previously been punched, and as his senses grew more and more dampened, and he realized he was blacking out, he, or what was in control of him, ran.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a shorter chapter, mostly because I didn't want to pad it out with a bunch of filler and wanted stuff to start panning out more. I also felt it was a pretty good place to end it.


	5. Now All Our Words, Like Boats

Jay drifted in and out of semi-consciousness, never in full control but able to see through his own eyes for a few brief moments. First, there were forests, then the tunnel from before, and many places he didn’t recognize but could easily tell were abandoned monoliths of brick and concrete, monuments to a failure he didn’t know. Every time he drifted back under he was in the dark place again, the one with the others who either called him a murderer or left him for dead. He couldn’t interact with them, like he was ghosting between reality and a dream, solid in neither with eyes in both. He saw Alex, the Alex covered in blood and cuts who he spoke with before alongside Brian and Tim. The first one he had seen of the three had been Tim, who had a gaping wound in the back of his head that wept blood like the mother mary. Brian seemed to be the worst out of all of them. A long cut ran down the side of his face, and the sweater he wore was dirty and torn. His hands were covered in small cuts as well leaving red handprints wherever he laid them down. Alex seemed just as angry as when Jay had seen him before. He approached them slowly, trying to hear what they were saying.

“Tim you don’t understand. You don’t know what he did to us, how he manipulated us. He pretended to be our friend so he could do this to us!” Alex said to Tim, who clearly wasn’t having it.

“How am I supposed to believe you? For all, I know this could all be your fault. You were friends with him the longest and you knew about that thing the whole time. Maybe he was right, maybe we were infecting everyone with it, but if that’s the case you're the one that got him first, and if he really did kill us then it’s because that thing twisted his mind around.” Tim replied, agitated.

“Tim you need to stop saying stuff like that, this wasn’t anyone's fault-” Brian interjected before being swiftly interrupted.

“Except for Jay’s.” Alex spat.

“Alex, shut up,” Brian replied curtly, giving him a piercing look. “This wasn’t anyone's fault and we won’t get anywhere if we play the name game. We need a plan to talk to him, figure out if the Jay you saw is the one you think it is. We all know for a fact there’s somehow multiple versions of us in whatever this place is, like the Seth that tried to kill you compared to our Seth who we haven’t seen for three months.”

“How do we know they’re not the same Seth? What if this place just… warps your mind?” Alex suggested. Jay felt himself being tugged back to consciousness, the pull being much more powerful this time. He tried to ignore it. He had to know more.

“Because if this place warped your mind and made you try to kill everyone even though I’m pretty sure we’re all already dead, wouldn’t we all be at each other's throats too?” Brian said as Jay could no longer resist the pull. As he faded out of the dream Alex quickly locked eyes with him.

“How did you- Get back here!” He shouted, clearly startled by his sudden presence. As Alex lunged towards him, likely in a bid to tackle him, he returned to consciousness, full consciousness this time. He looked around, finding himself on top of a shelf in a hospital room. Looking closer at the bed, he found it was Alex’s. He didn’t dare remove the mask or move, fearing that he would wake up Alex and be seen or that if a nurse walked in they would know who he was. He sat still until his legs were so badly cramped up it was agonizing to straighten them, eventually causing him to attempt to softly land on the floor. The landing was decidedly not soft, and he crashed to the foot of the hospital bed with a dull thud. He heard and felt Alex shoot up in bed, and knew he would now be awake for the rest of the night. Alex had always been a little paranoid often causing his sleeping schedule to take a hit if he heard anything out of the ordinary. He knew eventually he would have to find a way out of here, but the voice was nowhere to be found and Jay was sure he couldn’t just let go of controlling his own body without the voice trying to pull him away. He was very surprised at himself for taking all this bizarre information in relative stride, but knew as soon as he was somewhere sane he would have a full-blown panic attack on the floor. When he thought Alex had finally decided to just lay back down Jay moved to stand back up, only to be trapped in a headlock at the foot of the bed. 

“Who are you!” Alex shouted, trying to rip off Jay’s mask from behind to no avail. Jay only grunted in response, desperately pushing at Alex’s arm, trying to get him to let go. Eventually, Alex had managed to get him turned around and was now pulling at the bottom of the mask.

“No!” Jay shouted, socking him in the jaw before stumbling backwards. He slipped, hitting the floor hard. His ears rang as he stood and his mind felt staticky. He moved towards the open window, vaulting out of it before he knew what was on the other side. Jay free fell four stories, scrunching his eyes tightly shut as he realized this was where he was going to die, but rather than hitting concrete he felt the cold chill of water that forced him to gasp. His eyes shot open as he looked frantically for the surface he swam in what he assumed was up, breaking the surface just in time. He landed on the riverbank, shivering and coughing. He ripped the mask off his face, tossing it to the ground nearby before coughing up a splatter of blood onto the cool dark earth. He stared at it, puzzled before the sound of footsteps and branches rustling drove him to his feet. He snatched the mask, making his way behind a tree shortly before a group of three or four people rounded the corner. He recognized two of them, a couple from some of his glasses who were always talking about random art films he had never heard of before. He wondered if they ever just made them up to mess with people. He didn’t recognize the other two but assumed they must either be drama students or roped in friends. They all carried film equipment which they began to set up on the shore where Jay had just emerged.

“Hold on guys, gotta take a leak.” One of the two guys he didn’t recognize said shortly before running directly past Jay into the underbrush. He kept looking forward, hoping the brown sweater would be enough to camouflage him. Before he came back Jay decided to at least try climbing up the tree to try and hide until he left. As he grabbed onto the first branch and hoisted himself up onto it into a squatted position he heard the girl scream. She had come around the side of the tree and seen him without him realizing.

CONTROL, CONTROL. Jay heard the voice call out, suddenly present again, and he listened knowing that it at least had the skills to get Jay places that he didn’t. The fall into the dream was much rougher, as though he had actually fallen. Immediately he knew something was different. He was in a dimly lit room with a lightbulb hanging above him, and he was tied into a chair. He heard muttering from a dark corner he couldn’t see. After a few moments, Brian stepped into the light.

\---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------  
Tim and Brian had searched for hours in the woods of Rosswood to no avail. They had had a hard enough time finding Jay when he was presumably himself, now with the masked version of him waking up much earlier than normal it was going to be much harder. They made their way towards the last location they needed to check before deciding if they would check each one again or call it quits and hope he came back like Tim usually did. They found they had come to the right place when they turned the corner to see Jay crouched up a tree. A girl screamed when she finally took notice of him, causing him to fall off the branch he was using as a perch. He scrambled back up, watching behind him as he ran and running straight into Tim and Brian. 

“Do you know that guy?” The girl demanded in a shrill voice.

“No, but we can take care of him for you,” Brian said as Tim quickly hoisted the squirming not-Jay onto his shoulder before he could run off again. The girl turned up her nose, marching back to the shore where she began loudly complaining about voyeur bird people trying to steal their ideas. Tim rolled his eyes.

“Off,” Not-Jay said as he stopped squirming, realizing it wasn’t going to get him anywhere. “Off Please.”

This was the first time Tim had heard anyone try to communicate whilst in their masked state in any of the cycles he could remember. Brian glanced at him, clearly thinking the same thing.

“Please.” He pleaded, tapping on Tim’s back in some sort of code. 

“I’m not putting you down until we’re in the dorm,” Tim replied, causing not-Jay to huff in annoyance. 

Partway through the drive, Jay woke up, clearly frightened. He looked around wildly, as though he were terrified of something around him.

“Tim? Brian?” He asked, as though he expected the answer to be anything different. 

“Yeah, it’s us,” Tim replied, annoyed by the whole situation. Jay drew in a shaky breath, each time he breathed it grew more shallow until he was hyperventilating, drawing in and pushing air out before it could properly circulate. 

“What the fuck is wrong with me?” He asked in desperation, the situation only hitting him now. “Why am I such a freak?”

Tim felt bad for not explaining it sooner, for not telling Jay everything the second he mentioned the memory loss, or the strange dreams, or any of it, and he knew exactly why he didn’t tell him. Tim was selfish. He felt that if he had said anything about the cycles to Jay that something would end up happening to him because he would rush into a stupid situation. Tim didn’t want to lose Jay again, but he knew this wasn’t a Jay that knew him. This Jay had no memories of the cycles because every Jay that had been trapped in the dark place when dead had been killed again, one way or another, their memories dying with them. 

“I promise I’ll explain everything at the dorm.” He said softly.

“How can you explain this? I just spent who knows how long, running around in the dark with a mask on like a creep! There’s nothing to explain about that!”

“Jay, what’s going on with you, It’s complicated. You’ve been hearing a little voice right? One telling you that you need it to be safe?” Tim replied.

No, said the voice.

“Yes,” said Jay.

“Well, you’re not the only one. As I said, it’s complicated but I swear I’ll explain everything to you. I know, it’s really scary, but you’re not a freak or a creep, you’ve just been dealt a bad hand.” Tim said with a sigh. Despite his words, Jay still felt sick to his stomach about the whole thing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Literally, if you have any criticism about the way I write anything let me know so I can use that information to become a better writer! Thank you!


	6. Either They Sink or Float

They had been right. Jay didn’t believe them or at least was having trouble believing them. They didn’t blame him, they said it was hard to believe themselves.

“So the same things keep repeating over and over forever?” Jay asked, leaning forward. “And- And different people are just in different positions in the events which is what shifts them to be so… different each time?”

“Kind of? It’s more like, each time the cycle repeats different things get scrambled around. In the first cycle, we can remember, which may not be the first cycle ever, Tim and Alex spent their childhoods in a hospital around here somewhere which completely changed everything. The last cycle was just Tim and both of them had kind of similar events but were still completely different from each other.” Brian explained.

“Do you know why it’s like this? Or why you guys can remember what happened and I can’t?” Jay questioned, thoughts rolling around in his mind as his entire world view began to shift.

“We don’t know why the cycles happen, we’ve theorized that the Operator has something to do with it but we can’t be sure. We have some theories on the memory part too but nothing concrete. Currently, the top one is that the dark place that you think is a dream is some sort of alternate dimension or pocket dimension filled with dead versions of ourselves and that you need a version of yourself from a cycle to remember it, but we’re not sure because Alex has never remembered a cycle either.” Tim said to him, sitting down in a chair.

“And Alex has at least one version of himself there that hates my guts because he thinks I murdered everyone.” Tim nodded along as Jay spoke.

“Yeah, our other theory is that it might have something to do with the masked state and how connected you are to it. I’ve remembered every cycle and my masked-self has always been there. This is the first cycle Brian remembers the other ones and it’s probably because the last cycle he and his masked-self basically became one.” 

“Do you think me having a masked-self means I’ll start to remember?” Jay asked quietly. He wasn’t sure if he wanted to, as the events of every cycle sounded horrible.

“I can’t say for sure, it’s all theoretical. I don’t even know if it’s something that can be stopped.” They sat in silence for a few moments.

“I think we need to check out the tapes. In past cycles, some have somehow carried over and helped different people out with stuff or predicted events before they happen. The giant box of tapes can’t be a coincidence.” Jay nodded, looking towards the box in question. He pulled one out at random. Scrawled across it in black sharpie was the word “Solitude.” Another was labelled “Nemesis.” And a third “Paradox.” He assumed others would be labelled in similar ways. He set Solitude and Nemesis back in the box, taking Paradox to his room with him whilst he grabbed his laptop and tape reader. He brought them out to the common area, setting it down so that all of them could watch the screen.

“We might as well watch them then,” Jay said as he popped Paradox into the reader and hit play. 

To say the footage they watched horrified him was a severe understatement. It was like watching a highlight reel from hell composed entirely of people suffering, but as he watched memories of this cycle or timeline or whatever the loop of unhappiness they were all stuck in was flooded into his mind.

“I remember this,” Jay said quietly, earning him a strange look from Tim. “Not remember, more like I was reminded by it of memories I couldn’t remember before. The tape doesn’t show it but now I can recall that Alex soldiered on and finished the movie and at that point, everyone was infected, but no one ever hurt anyone else. Every death was a freak accident like the universe was telling us to hurry it up already.” 

“I don’t remember this cycle.” Brian responded quietly, “But I'm glad you do now. More information is always better, especially when it’s spread between different people.”

They finished the tape, Jay fishing out the one labelled Solitude. This one didn’t bring back any memories, but he found the person in the footage to be familiar. It was then that he realized where he had seen the man in the white shirt.

“That’s the guy from the dark place, the dead one!” He exclaimed. 

“The one who got his head bashed in with a rock?” Tim questioned before realizing his mistake. Jay didn’t remember that, or any of the previous timeline. His heart sunk when he was reminded of this fact, in turn reminding him he likely would never recover the relationship he had with his Jay, although it had frayed apart towards the end through partially his fault. He glanced at both Jay and Brian, thinking of the suffering he had caused them, and now neither of them remembered the previous cycle. His mind drifted to Alex, who was not to blame entirely for what happened and seemed only to remember the last cycle. Tim breathed in and out slowly and before he knew it they were onto a new tape. This one was labelled Tryst, and as soon as he saw the first clip his heart sank. He remembered this one.

He and Jessica had just decided to start getting two bedrooms together rather than an adjoining one to save what little money they had left. Jessica had explained to him the plan and the targets, and how they would lure the masked people out of hiding. He didn’t understand why they had been targeted by them, and he didn’t think Jessica did either. He remembered the first kill he had performed, thinking it was one of the figures breaking into his home where they had been staying after Jessica showed up, claiming she had been attacked and did what she had to do. At that point he believed her, not knowing of the monster that followed her like a dog, or maybe it was the one with her on a leash. It was only after he fired the bullet that killed his best friend Brian Thomas that he considered the possibility her morals had been skewed. He refused to pull the trigger the next time, handing it off to Jessica who did it without hesitation. They hadn’t realized yet it could be people they knew under the masks, and after pulling the mask made from some sort of paper plate off what they thought to be a stranger they saw it was Jessica’s ex-roommate and Alex’s girlfriend, Amy. Tim thought Jessica would at least cry a little, but all she did was walk away silently, leaving the body on the filthy floor. The next time she didn’t let Tim refuse, and made him pull the trigger. Under the mask that time had been Alex. Jessica again, walked away, a neutral expression on his face. Tim cried. They left, and Tim thought of a way he could get away from her. This wasn’t as cut and dry as he thought it would be, these were people he knew. He had been secretly calling Jay at some points, trying to speak to him and see if he could go to his place, but the calls became lesser and lesser until he stopped answering, and his phone number came up disconnected. It was only a few days later when he found out why. Jessica missed the shot she tried to take and before she could do another the masked stranger had tackled her, taken the gun, and pulled the trigger. Tim felt awful when he looked at her and the first thing he felt was a relief. He turned to the masked figure who, at first held the gun out towards him, but dropped it shortly before tearing the mask off and looking around frightened and confused. It was Jay. 

Tim didn’t watch the rest of the footage. He already knew how this cycle ended. Instead, he watched Jay’s expression shift from shock to sadness as the other Tim fell backwards from the window, ending the cycle.

“Tim did you, did you remember all of that?” Jay probably wanted him to say no, that it was all new information. Tim wanted to lie, say it was something he hadn’t recalled, make Jay feel better, but that was selfish, and lying only ever made things worse.

“Yeah.” He responded quietly, looking down to the floor.

“I’m sorry.” He replied, putting a hand on the other man's back. They all agreed to stop the tapes for the next few days so that they could explain everything to Alex and give him time to think about it. They all decided to spend the night in the couches and chairs sleeping in shifts, just in case one of them had something occur. 

Jay didn’t dream that night, but he recalled what had happened in the dark place. What he hadn’t yet told the others. 

It had begun simple enough, some sort of interrogation. Other-Alex didn’t seem to believe a word he said, but the longer the interrogation went on the more Other-Brian and Other-Tim seemed to believe him, eventually going so far as to untie him from the chair. He wasn’t sure where they had gotten rope from.

“So, if you’re not from any of the cycles we mentioned, what cycle are you from?” Other-Brian asked. Jay was still confused at that statement, as he had not yet learned about the cycles, so he said the best he could.

“I don’t know.” 

“Liar!” Alex spat from the corner he stalked like a caged tiger. “You have to remember something, everyone here does.”

Jay wracked his brain, trying to think of any distant memory he could pull forward. Images flashed in his mind, and before he could think of what he was saying he blurted out his thoughts.

“Alex shot me.” The room froze. Alex turned to him slowly, failing to keep his rage off his face.

“You’re lying.” Was all he said before he dove forward, wrapping his hands around Jay’s throat. That was when he woke up.

He had originally assumed the dark place was some sort of dream world, that none of it was physical, but when he moved to support his neck that night when he slept on the couch he wasn’t so sure because he could feel the bruises forming on his neck where Alex had tried to throttle him.

He did his best to hide them in the morning, wearing the old sweater to cover them up, not realizing Alex might recognize it from when he kind of broke into his hospital room until it was too late. If he did make the connection he didn’t say anything, moving through the dorm house like a ghost. He didn’t speak to any of them, instead of nodding or humming in agreement to whatever was said to him. To say he looked defeated was a severe understatement, he looked like he had completely given up, a far cry even from the Alex who cried on Jay’s shoulder merely a week ago. It hurt to see him this way, but every time he tried to say something or do something Alex would drift off elsewhere like he was avoiding him. Jay could tell he hadn’t been sleeping or eating well in any capacity from the dark circles around his eyes and his lethargic movements. He looked incredibly sick, as though he had caught ten different flu’s and had them warring in his body all at once. Jay also noticed that Alex’s arms were incredibly skinny as though all the muscle mass had drained out of them, and whilst a baggy t-shirt and pants hid the rest of his body he didn’t doubt it looked the same. Several times throughout the day Jay attempted to speak with Alex only to be completely ignored, not even receiving a nod or hum in acknowledgement like the others. His mind began to wander.

“Do you think Alex hates me?” Jay asked quietly from the kitchen as he peeked his head around the corner to watch Alex who was currently staring blankly at a wall. “Or do you think he might have known it was me at the hospital?”

“I don’t know, you’d have to ask him,” Tim responded as a distant look crossed his face, one that Jay had learned to recognize the meaning of being that Tim was trying to mentally connect some dots. “Unless…”

“Unless?”

“You’re one-hundred percent sure that you don’t remember the last cycle, right? Nothing at all has popped into your mind at any point?” Tim asked him in a whisper. Jay’s mind flashed back to the dark place, to a gun pointed at him and a bullet in his abdomen, and hands around his neck. The bruises felt like they were melting hand-shaped holes through his skin.

“Yeah? Why?” he lied, something he seemed to be getting better at every day. An uncomfortable feeling bloomed in the pit of his stomach, the sort of nausea you feel when something bad has happened or you know it is about to happen but you are utterly powerless to stop it and instead sit stressed, watching it unfold.

“I think it’s best if we find last cycle's tape and watch it when Alex isn’t around, or watch it in your dorm room or something,” Tim suggested. They had already moved the box of tapes and other items into Jay’s room that morning before Brian had gotten back with Alex, not sure how he would react to the items. Tim shut the door behind them when they entered the room, making sure it had closed all the way. Then they began going through tapes.

Adrift, Bailiwick, Yonder, Harpy, Apparatus, Akimbo, Catastrophe, and Claptrap had been just as horrifying as the first ones Jay had seen, but as they progressed through them, some minutes, some hours, they began to bleed together and Jay slowly became more and more numbed to their contents. Corkscrew, Dilemma, Fandango, Grim, number and number. Epiphany was Jessica, Fiasco Alex, but not the one they were looking for. Firebrand was a stranger. Foolhardy was no one's cause. Rebellion was everyone’s fault. Gargoyle was when they all started bleeding together, names and faces and blood. So much blood pooling in his mind like an elevator in a particular Kubrick film. Kubrick had been another tape name. It had briefly snapped him out of his numbness but he quickly drifted back into it. The ones that struck him the hardest were the ones where they almost made it and everything collapsed in the end, some examples being Gumshoe, Haphazard, Idiom, and Killjoy. Watching some of them did cause memories to surface in Jay’s mind with others floating downwards into nothingness, trying to not be remembered anymore. It was the last batch of the day where they found the two most interesting tapes. The grouping had been Axiom, Kaleidoscope, Nemesis, Mayhem, and Mastermind. Three of them had been in line with the others, people dying for seemingly no reason other than one person was warped by something they still didn’t understand and thus far had seen far less then other cycles showed. The last two had been very interesting for their own reasons. Axiom had been what they were looking for, with the main difference from other Alex killer cycles being that in others he had never killed Jay on his own. He had always backed out at the last minute, and something else would get him. Maybe that was why he seemed so avoidant of Jay. Maybe the only loop he could remember was the one where he had killed his best friend and one of the last people who had been willing to help him. They decided to watch the last tape since they had already pulled it out of the box and we're trying to keep viewed ones separate from unviewed.

Nemesis was interesting because it was a complete anomaly. For one thing, the first death had been a complete accident, and aside from the current loop, it had been the earliest the masked people had begun to shift. It was also the first cycle Jay killed everyone else. He didn’t want to watch, but the voice made him, exercising enough control over him to keep his gaze on the screen as every single one of his friends fell by his hand. It was easy to see what had pushed him over the edge. He had been a masked one that cycle and in a masked state had accidentally killed Alex. After that it must have been easy for the faceless monster to work it’s way into his mind, convincing him the only way to fix anything was to destroy everything. Tim turned off the tape when the footage showed, from Jay’s perspective, him going around a corner, Tim facing away from him. His arm stretched out, gun in hand, and the screen turned black before he fired.

“I think that’s enough,” Tim said, standing up abruptly. “We saw what we needed to, I’m going to go burn some tapes in the backyard.”

They both turned around, finding that at some point during their trance of watching hours of tapes, Alex had wandered into the room. His eyes were teary, and he kept scratching furiously at his neck, nails leaving raw red lines.

“Alex what are you-” Jay asked, quickly being interrupted.

“Does it matter what I’m doing, Jay? I’m a monster. I shouldn’t be here. I saw so many of those tapes, and you know what I noticed?” He asked a rhetorical question that went unanswered by anyone but him. “Every other cycle or timeline or whatever, someone died before someone else started killing anyone else. They at least had some sort of justification for what they did. Me? I just did it. If the things that Brian or Tim or You or any of the others I don’t recognize were awful and monstrous with justification, then what were mine? What’s worse than a monster?”

“Alex you’re not a monster that wasn’t you-” 

“How do you know that, Jay? What if I’m just some sort of freak who gets off on hurting other people? What if I liked it? What if that monster hadn’t even told me to do anything?” His voice cracked as he spoke. The tension in the air was palpable, like television static. Jay froze. He looked away from Alex, behind him and through the doorway. The others' eyes followed and at the same time, they saw it, standing there. It didn’t do anything but the longer it stood the harder it became to think. Jay blacked out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some of the tape names are references, some more obvious than others.


	7. Are They Designed Like That? (+IMPORTANT AUTHORS NOTE!)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AUTHORS NOTE
> 
> The plot to this got really stupid and overcomplicated and dumb so I’m going to rewrite it but leave this version up. I’ll make worldbuilding documents and everything to keep track of my pseudo-time travel shenanigans. In the meantime here is all I could muster of the next chapter before I collapsed in a heap mentally and began writing The SUmmer When The Sun Didn’t Shine instead because that doesn’t have time travel, only obsessive fans who don’t understand personal trauma or boundaries! So, I guess read that for now or read some other fics like @FlametheSeraph 's Angel's Ark which is really well written and cool!

Alex woke up screaming. He shivered as he looked around, a cold wind blowing through the woods he now found himself in, chilling him to the bone. He regretted refusing to wear anything more than a t-shirt and jeans when he was cold in the dorm house as now he was freezing. It was dark out, which didn’t help alleviate the panic he had been feeling before he woke up wherever here was, likely Rosswood park considering the last thing he could remember was that faceless thing in the corner before Jay collapsed, followed shortly by himself and likely Tim as well. He hoped Brian had been undisturbed by it, hoping it didn’t know he was holed up in his room studying for classes. As Alex looked around the second thing he took notice of was that he was completely alone. He sighed with a bit of relief, some of his panic subsiding. If that monster was here again it was likely the same thing he saw happen on the tape would happen once again, and the further away he was from his friends and his stupid little student film the better. He remembered in the tape that he had blamed Tim for everything that had happened, claiming it was his fault because that thing had followed him, but who was to say it wasn’t his own fault? Alex reached back in his memory, trying to recall any tall pale men from his past, a few instances coming to the front of his mind. A birthday party. A playground with a large shade tree, getting lost in the woods, the more Alex remembered the more he concluded that now that he had the blessing and curse of retrospect he knew this was all his fault. He was the only one to blame. Tim hadn’t gone around, pushing everyone away because he couldn’t just deal with a problem, Tim hadn’t tried to kill everyone he knew out of some perverted sense of justice, Tim had never been the monster, he had been. Every step of the way, Jay and Tim and Brian and Jessica and no doubt many others had only been trying to stop him, only been trying to live their lives. He began to walk. He had no idea where he was going and quite frankly didn’t care. He just needed to stop thinking, and walking was the second-best way to do that. He didn’t dwell too long on the first best.

Tim felt groggy and wondered how long he and Jay must have spent reviewing tapes. They’d have to move motels soon, maybe even go to Tim’s house for a change. The more he woke up however the more aware he became of his surroundings and circumstances. He was alone in the woods, and there were no motels to move through. Tim didn’t even live in that house yet, and maybe he never would in this timeline. After all, he likely would never be able to step into that room and not see a phantom memory of Jay’s body in the corner. He hoped Alex was alright, despite everything he had done. At this point with the memories he now had and the records on the tapes he’d be a hypocrite to outright condemn him for what he had done seeing as he had blood on his hands. Tim stood up slowly, hoping that Jay or Alex would be somewhere nearby. He couldn’t see anyone and as he walked slowly through the underbrush, leaves crunching underfoot, the hair on the back of his neck began to stand. He paused, listening carefully. He didn’t hear anything abnormal. He looked around, scrutinizing every detail of the landscape around him. He began to walk again and swore that he could hear footsteps following closely behind him. He stopped abruptly, catching whoever was following him off guard as he heard leaves crunch behind him. He decided to pretend he didn’t notice. If he did that they might slip up and Tim could figure out who they were and what they wanted. He kept moving, quickly realizing he was completely unfamiliar with this stretch of wood and that it was quickly becoming night time. He hoped that things hadn’t taken him to Florida or New Jersey. He doubted it, if the creature had half a brain it would have done something like that before, making it easier for whoever it was controlling to pick off everyone. This was likely just a more secluded area of Rosswood which only lessened his concern by a fractional amount. As he attempted to find anything that he could recognize in the woods around him he heard the footsteps behind him speed up. They were charging him. Before they reached him he whipped around, fist flying through the air and clocking the stranger in the jaw, or at least where their jaw should be under the mask. They crumpled to the ground unconscious. Tim didn’t unmask them instead choosing to pick them up and putting them over his shoulder. This was someone he didn’t recognize from any of the tapes and the fact there were already four of them he could now conclude was running around in masks greatly concerned him. The only one who had ever had it this early was himself, and that was because it had been happening since he was a kid. He sighed, picking a direction and walking in it, hoping he would find one of the others before something bad happened.

Jay was back in the Dark Place, he could tell without even opening his eyes. He hoped that when he did he would be alone, be able to wake up somewhere where he wouldn’t get jumped or have someone try to kill him. He looked around, standing up quickly and brushing himself off. This area he now found himself in was different than all the others. It was so dark he could only see about three feet all around him, but wherever he looked it was like a mirror around him, reflecting himself thousands of times. He reached out to a mirror next to him and it rippled when his fingers brushed it, the image changing. He heard a sound as the image played, like someone screaming underwater. All he could see was someone he couldn’t identify desperately trying to breach the surface of what seemed to be a river. He looked away, brushing his hand along others. Each one rippled showing a different image, each one worse than the last. Some he recognized from the tapes, others he didn’t, and he didn’t understand what this place was. He began to run, his heart beating out of his chest, trying to get somewhere more familiar even if it meant dealing with Other-Alex. As he ran the mirrors rippled violently until a small, crystalline sound began to ring out. He looked behind him, eyes widening in horror as the little bit of mirror he could see shattered inwards at an alarming speed. He continued to run, not daring to look back when he heard the tell-tale sound of rushing water coming closer to him. The glass began to shatter in front of him, shards of it tearing across his exposed face and arms. He kept running through the burning pain of the wounds until his stomach flipped as he felt himself careening forward towards the floor. He watched his reflection come closer, but rather than his face covered in bruises and scratches and cuts he saw the face of the mask he had found with its horrible grimacing grin. He felt the ripple and shatter around him before he felt the vertigo of spinning downwards from a great height. He watched the darkness around him as he felt himself spin, wanting to scream as eyes opened up all around him, but no sound came out. They twitched wildly, watching his descent, and as he finally saw the floor of a forest he closed his eyes hoping he wouldn’t feel the impact when he woke up. 

Alex felt the trees and thorns scratch his arms and legs as he walked in a straight line to seemingly nowhere. Every once and a while he could swear he saw it out of the corner of his eye, watching. He tried his best to ignore it and everything else around him. As darkness fell and the moon rose in the sky he figured it was likely he was going to just lie down and die out here rather than find his way out. When he came upon a still lake he decided to stop walking. His legs ached and the cold wasn’t helping, and he needed to rest. He watched the lake as it sat undisturbed. He could sense the creature behind him, but he paid it no mind. It didn’t matter anymore. As he watched the lake the surface began to ripple, gently at first and then frantic as someone clawed at the surface, desperately trying to get out. He couldn’t make out who it was in the darkness, instead of hoping they wouldn’t notice him as they swam to shore, crawling up onto the beach and coughing up water until they were left dry heaving. Alex watched them from his place in the darkness, wondering if he would need to defend himself. When he felt a gloved hand reach around and clasp over his mouth he realized he should have been on the defence ages ago. He managed to bite down on his attacker's hand, causing them to pull away with a yelp. He quickly scrambled to his feet, stumbling into the clearing by the pond and tripping over the individual who had crawled from the waters. When he landed with a thud that knocked the air out of him. He looked up, finding the person he tripped over to be Jay just as someone crashed through the trees on the other side of the clearing from where he had come. It was Tim, and he had someone draped over his shoulder.

“It’s here, we have to run, now.” As he said it, whoever had tried to grab him ran out of the treeline, freezing when they saw them all standing there. They wore some sort of strangely shaped mask that only covered the bottom half of their face, allowing Alex to watch the stranger glance at the person on Tim’s shoulder.


End file.
